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Rebekah Vardy has spoken for the primary time about her experiences of rising up as a Jehovah’s Witness.
In a Channel 4 documentary she alleges the faith did not help her by way of sexual abuse as a toddler.
The media character and spouse of footballer Jamie Vardy was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness in Norwich however left on the age of 15.
The 41-year-old additionally talks about her anger at how her household was shunned following her dad and mom’ divorce.
Within the documentary, Vardy mentioned she was sexually abused by somebody in the neighborhood when she was a younger teenager, claiming it was coated up by elders – senior male spiritual leaders.
In response to the claims made within the documentary, Jehovah’s Witnesses mentioned it’s “false and offensive” to indicate that they stand in the best way of the authorities.
Vardy mentioned: “I used to be introduced up in a strict and controlling spiritual organisation.
“What occurred to me throughout my childhood nonetheless impacts me each single day.
“From the age of round 12 years outdated I used to be being abused and as an alternative of being supported I used to be blamed, manipulated into believing it wasn’t the perfect factor to take it to the police.
“I informed my mum in regards to the abuse that I used to be experiencing. She cried, however did not imagine me.
“I informed quite a few members of my household, Jehovah’s Witness neighborhood, they usually referred to as a gathering, I believe I used to be about 15, it was instructed that I had misinterpreted the abuse for a type of affection.
“I knew that I hadn’t, I used to be effectively conscious of what was proper and what was improper, and it was defined that I may convey disgrace on my household, and I used to be mainly manipulated into believing it wasn’t the perfect factor to do to take it any additional and take it to the police.
“It is laborious to see how I survived that.”
Rebekah and Jamie Vardy
Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian denomination with about 8.5 million followers worldwide, and imagine the destruction of the world is imminent. They’ve quite a lot of beliefs which might be distinctive to them – they don’t salute the flag of any nation, they refuse navy service, and they’re in opposition to blood transfusions, for instance.
‘You would need to do issues to maintain Jehovah joyful’
Vardy mentioned that, as a toddler, she believed she would die in Armageddon if she was not “good” and she or he remembered being proven “upsetting” pictures depicting the tip of the world, saying these nonetheless trigger her nightmares as an grownup.
She mentioned: “You would need to do issues to maintain Jehovah joyful, as a result of he was all the time watching.
“Who you spoke to, the way you spoke, the way you dressed, the way you held your self, the way you performed each a part of your entire life, and we had been informed if we did not pray sufficient, unhealthy issues would occur to us.”
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She mentioned that after her dad and mom divorced, kin and buddies had been banned from associating with them.
“I believe that is the place my actual resentment to faith began… being made to really feel so unhealthy, so totally different,” she mentioned.
‘False and offensive’
Within the documentary, Vardy, now a mother-of-five, met different former Jehovah’s Witnesses, together with a sufferer of kid abuse and the mom of a person who killed himself after being expelled by the organisation.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses informed Channel 4 that elders are directed to instantly report an allegation of kid sexual abuse to the authorities even when there is just one complainant.
They rejected the suggestion that being expelled from the faith contributed to suicide and added: “Courts have rejected the allegation that disfellowshipping and so-called shunning leads to social isolation and discrimination.
“And it’s merely deceptive and discriminatory to indicate that our faith is controlling.”
Additionally they mentioned they lacked the knowledge to touch upon particular person circumstances.
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